Allah will embroil them all!

I'm ba-aaack...

And now both my legs from the knees down are killing me. Oh well, I bought a big bottle of cheap white zinfandel, and it is chilling in the fridge. I might even make pasta later.

Update: Oh yeah -- the Invasion of the Backless Shoes didn't just inflict Payless. I went to the Expensive Mall (Mall of the Millenia, the one with the Apple Store and the Macy's and so on) and walked around. The few casual flats I did see were overpriced (not that I didn't expect that). A specialty store had some Mephisto walking shoes on sale, but even at fifty percent off they were beyond my budget. I love Mephistos, but I balk at paying so much for things I'm going to stomp around on the dirty pavement with.

Must... flee...

Sunday fun

Early this morning I dreamed that I took the wrong bus, then got off the bus when I discovered my mistake, and as I watched it drive away to who-knows-where, I realized that I had left my purse, with my cell phone, all my keys, and all my ID and money, on the bus. I hadn't figured out a way to get my purse back by the time I woke up. Dreams like that leave me invariably grumpy and unrested, so I decided to roam around blogville. (At least I can't lose my purse there.) I came across the blog of Fr. Bryce Sibley. He has amusing links, such as this Flash thing cautioning the world about The! Whore! of! Babylon! As the good father says, guess who it is. Complete with cheesy horror-movie music and a picture of a rather cool-looking dame riding a neat seven-headed beast. Gotta get me one of those when the End Times rolls around... hey, I don't know about you sinners, but I plan to go out in style. He also has a link to the Mr. T haiku page. This gives me a horrid vision of a mass held entirely in Latin rap...

June 28, 2003

Bugs, man

Radio killed the video star

So, I keep hearing about this Michael Savage guy, who is some sort of conservative radio talk show host pundit spewmeister thing. Huh. I've never heard his show, unless it was for about five seconds until my hand could get to the dial to change the station. I don't listen to talking on the radio -- talking without visible faces annoys me. (Yes, talking on the phone is not my favorite activity, and it cheeses me off if someone in another room is watching the tv and I can hear the dialogue clearly. This is my point of psychosis, okay?) Anyway, I had a thought -- considering Michael Savage's show is apparently called "Savage Nation," what do you think of me changing my name to "Tar"? Think I can get a radio deal and have people fawning all over me/frothing at the mouth at my existence?

Eh, never mind. I hate talking, and in showbiz you gotta shmooz, and I don't shmooz.

New shoes

My cat likes my new shoes. (A few minutes ago she was rubbing her head all over them but of course by the time I got the camera fired up she was little miss placid.)

By the way, whoever decided that turning every shoe type into a backless mule -- sneaker, leather mocassin, mary jane, etc. -- was what women wanted should be dragged out into the middle of the Mojave Desert, pinned to the sand with stilletto heels, and left for the sun to kill.

She's my cherry pie

A media moron complains

And journalists wonder why people hate them: in this article, BBC world affairs editor John Simpson whines that the deaths of journalists in the recent battle in Iraq were all the US military's fault, and guess why:

Simpson blamed the deaths of many of the journalists - what he called "the ultimate act of censorship" - on the system of embedding, which meant that journalists operating independently of US and British troops became "potential targets".

(Emphasis mine.) Jesus H. Christ, the military is damned if they do and damned if they don't, aren't they, you whinging, puling twat? As a commenter in Jeff Jarvis's post on this pointed out, the news media complained during the first Gulf War on how they weren't told anything, didn't get to go to the battle, yadda yadda blah blah blah. Now this dickhead comes along and starts grousing about how being put in the middle of the battles as they requested got some journalists killed. Guh. What I should have said was (thanks to Angie Schultz for alerting me to my gaffe) : he starts grousing about how embedding reporters in the war somehow endangered all reporters especially -- somehow embedding a reporter in one place caused the deaths of others not so embedded. Well, dopey, you had a choice: some reporters get to go to the front, or no reporters get to go to the front. No, they all couldn't go to the front. I'm sorry of that sounds too much like your grammar school teacher telling you that you couldn't get a hall pass, but tough. And I'm also afraid that there never will be any special protection for any journalist who puts themselves into a warzone; at least, not any more than any other noncombatant gets. Yeah, gee, media passes aren't bullet and bomb deflectors, so whaddaya know! Asshole.

Also, I just wanted to add that it's too bad reporters got killed, but he basically seems to be claiming that the US military deliberately targeted reporters they didn't like. Yeah, better have some evidence to back that up, newsboy.

That 100-year-old dead white racist guy

Charles G. Hill at Dustbury.com has the most even-handed and, to my mind, the best statement on the late Strom Thurmond. Charles brings personal experience and a certain maturity to what has become a minor blogville shriek-o-fest, what with the many self-righteous cries on one side of "Good riddance, burn in hell you racist!" (in the comments) and of "How dare you speak ill of Strom Thurmond, he was a great man, I'm delinking you so there!" on the other (in the post and the comments).

Here is my personal viewpoint of the matter: I don't know what his recent senate voting record was like, but I am pretty sure that he had stopped voting in favor of segregation some time ago. Sure, we have yahoos like Trent Lott who slipped up and basically admitted that they yearned for the good old days when Thurmond was in his prime and darkies knew their place. And I have the feeling that many of his constituents kept voting him into office out of nostalgia for that halcyon time when an illiterate white farmboy could openly consider himself superior to a black man with a college degree. But did Thurmond still hold those views? I have no idea -- I am pretty sure he didn't do so openly, though. I think it was a disgrace that someone so old and (at least physically) doddering should not have retired after a certain age -- say, before he needed two aides to hold him up all the time. I don't say this out of revulsion for old age. In many ways his refusal to retire had something of that present-day, in-your-face attitude that everyone seems to have -- a certain truculent refusal to take the other person into consideration because the universe revolves around me! me! me!

But I don't know that his current senatorial record isn't enough to offset the damage his segregation-era congressional career did. I do wonder at the wisdom of cursing people for what they did in their past, and disregarding anything they may have done in the present to make up for it. We talk a great deal about wanting to "heal" the wounds of racism, and of reforming racists, but what might a racist think when he sees this sort of thing? If we have given up on the lasting value of reform, what are we going to do instead, execute them?

Updated to add:this (the pertinent phrase is here if you don't want to read any more hosannas to St. Strom) is why I decided to make my blogroll private, by the way. The public, showy act of linking and delinking is just so much evidence that the internet is one big middle school. I was a misanthropic outsider who refused to participate in the shenanigans then, and I might as well be one now.

Spam problems

Someone named Jake D at jake.duffy@bigpond.com sent me an email claiming to have received spam with my email from one of those penis-enlarging outfits. I didn't reply to him through my email in case this was just a slightly more clever way of getting email addresses for a spam list. But I did go to the trouble of running my virus checker -- nothing was found. (Yes, it's up to date.) So if some spambot stole my email address and you get something from either harrisandrea-at-earthlink.net or webmistress-at-spleenville.com offering you a foolproof method of adding inches to your dick, rest assured it's not really from me.

June 27, 2003

Just fooling around

I'm just fooling with the site and the image and everything. Frodo was getting a little tired of holding that sword. As you can see he's got a headache right now. My stylesheet is a mess. But the site is readable in Lynx (text only browser, see the handy link at the bottom of the menu, or just telnet or something into your shell access and start Lynx from there), so just about anyone should be able to read my site now. I'm all about the readability, me.

Some cosmetic enhancements

There, I think setting the main blog font as a sans-serif makes it easier to read. I have also set the print-friendly page to a serif font, since according to design manuals serif is easier to read in print.

Stupid British Comic Book Guy

I was enjoying this article by a comic-book-writer's preoccupation with the late Princess Di's "strange, mutant powers." But it is in the Guardian, so of course there was this bit near the end:

Being one of a small but influential bunch of British writers working in the very American world of comics and superheroes, it is nice to be able to inject something peculiarly British into the comic melting pot. In a sense, we're doing a public service, helping to drag some Americans out of their insularity.

Like an anchovy in a custard flan, it ruined the rest of the column for me. My mood of convivial amusement instantly changed to sour irritation at this example of, well, British insularity. Once again someone from across the big salty shows his blithe ignorance of the fifty states where his fellow comic artists probably get most of their income. I would like to say to this person -- one Peter Milligan -- that right off the top of my head the two comic book writers that I-- no huge comic afficionado -- can name are Allan Moore (V For Vendetta, hello?) and Neil Gaiman. They were British the last time I checked, though Gaiman at least now lives in the US. But I'd have to think a bit longer before I could name the American ones. But Americans are insular because, I can only guess, we made Moore's and Gaiman's names household words (at least in the comic world) instead of Milligan's. Winner of this Week's Honorary Ass Hat Award.

Paying for it

I skimmed this entry by Steven Den Beste on legalized prostitution. I am not particularly interested in what people do with their nether regions or their cash. If they are adults I think they should be able to do what they like with and to other adults, as long as no one gets maimed or killed. That's all I have to say on my personal views of the bumping of uglies.

But I do wonder if we should be so sanguine about the eventuality (so Steven declares here) of widespread legalized prostitution here in the US. I only know what I have read, really, so my info is no doubt biased. Here are a couple of things that have shaped my thinking on this matter (what little thinking I do of it):

Ursula K. LeGuin is a super-liberal scifi writer. I like a lot of her stuff, anyway, despite the PC-ness of a lot of her recent work. A few years ago she published a novel/thing/collection of stories (it's not easy to describe it) called Always Coming Home. It's based on a "future past" society of neo-Native-Americans living in a kind of post-apocalyptic Shire. I didn't really care for all of it, but one phrase in it stuck with me: in a story about a girl who leaves the idyllic valley to go to live with her father's backward, sexist tribe, and finds out that she doesn't really fit in there either, she decides to get married so she can have sex. The character describes her decision (I am paraphrasing since I don't have the book anymore) this way: "Since I could not be happy, I decided that I would have pleasure instead."

A couple of weeks ago I was idly flipping through channels and I came to that Catholic cable channel (the one with Sister Mary Angelica and crew). There was a priest -- actually a friar, in a monk's robe, I forget the order, which ever one still wears gray robes. He was talking about the days when he used to be a priest in an inner city neighborhood somewhere. A lot of the women who would come to his mission or church or whatever (I'm not Catholic, I don't know what it should be called) were prostitutes. He was talking about them, not in a condemnatory way as you might expect, but just describing what he had observed. He noted that many of them who happened to have daughters all had ambitions that their daughters not join them in their own "trade," but that they get married and get out of that kind of life. Of course, this is just a small segment of society, limited to one point of view, but I did think that that was interesting.

But Steven says something here that I think is also interesting, and betrays to me a certain blindness of just what is cause and what is effect:

Prostitution is legal in several nations in Europe now, and clearly hasn't led to the downfall of society there. (Their societies are collapsing for other reasons, but not for that one.)

Well, I don't think that legalized prostitution is causing the downfall of anything, or that it ever has. I think that an increase in certain of what I will call "indulgent behaviors" is not a cause, but a symptom, of what I am not sure. But I think of that quote, dropped into a story whose protagonists belong to a pacifistic, sexually-relaxed future society, about people who are not happy turning to "pleasure" -- there meaning enjoyments that are temporary and ultimately unfulfilling -- and I think of those women wanting their daughters to get married to one man instead of servicing many strangers for money, and I just wonder if the solution to whatever problems we have is to make prostitution into just another career option.

Oh, okay, one last bit on "bright"

Angie Schultz weighs in on the Prince of Brightness, Richard Dawkins, and his latest idiotic campaign to make people less tolerant of atheists. (I know he thinks that this "bright" silliness will foster tolerance, rationality, clear up teenage acne, cure cancer, and feed the starving, but it won't.) And she reminds me what word I was looking for in my earlier post but couldn't remember:

This article reeks of smug. Great waves of smug roll from it and envelope my keyboard. It falls to the floor and wafts over the carpet. Anybody know where I can buy some smug remover? I'm fresh out.

They aren't Brights, they're Smugs.

Update: Aaron Haspel has more to say as well. And while I have used the word "meme" to describe kewl innernut trends, I felt vaguely dirty about it, so I won't any more.

Site changes and stuff

I'm going to be doing some changes to the site. One major change: I am taking down my blog roll. I will still have a blog roll, but it will be private, accessible only to me from my browser. I admit I had it available on my web page so I could read blogs during down times at work. Anyway, it's not going to be available from the website anymore. No one needs to see who I am linking or not linking too. What I will have instead (eventually) is a small list of links on the side, of blogs or other sites I feel like featuring.

Also, I may take the hatemail page down. It was a bit of a fun joke, but now I'm kind of bored with it. We'll see.

I also have another personal project I am working on. I am still tweaking it and trying to decide what I want it to be. Stay tuned. If you happen to have come across it, kindly refrain from mentioning it (such as its url) until I announce it.

Upside the head

Some guy who runs a company (no link from me) has been sending people with blogscease and desist letters, claiming he invented the "brand" of the term "clue-by-four." You know what? I think that guy needs to be hit by a clue-by-four. He needs to be hit by several clue-by-fours. Or should that be clues-by-four?

Clue-by-four, clue-by-four, clue-by-four.

Look, ma, no trademark!

Asshole.

Here's another link to someone who got a letter from Mr. Clue-deprived. Excuse me, Mr. Clue-By-Four-Deprived.

June 26, 2003

A bucket, kicked

Sing aschlong

Kim Du Toit lamented here on the "death of music" -- music, that is, that people from all walks of life could sing along to and even play at home on their own instruments. Well, Jim Treacher, with a little help from PBS, is taking his own small steps to rectify this lack in our society. (Um, that last link not safe for work, homes with children or, pets, or adults, and if you click on it your name probably automatically goes on John Ashcroft's Sinner's List. What, you didn't know about the list? Number twenty-four, baby!)

(The management would like to apologize for the totally tasteless joke in the title. We blame it on the deep schism between Hillary Clinton fans and Ann Coulter fans -- it's messing us up in the head. Can't we all just get along?)

Things are tough all over

So that's what happened. Hey, now I have something in common with James Lileks, besides the fact that we are both human and hate the Seventies with an all-abiding passion. Well -- I wasn't laid off, I quit, and he wasn't laid off, but still -- nothing like that "So, what am I going to do now?" feeling! (Okay, I did have a plan, and I did have a good job interview, and--)

Well -- those orange shag rugs were hideous, weren't they? The way little strands of yarn would come loose...

Turn that light off!

So, what do you think about this "bright" bullshit? Well, I guess you can tell what I think... here is the comment I left in Dean's post on the subject. He's all thrilled to pieces. (Read the post.) I'm not:

Why do I hate this "new" usage of the term "bright"? It has nothing to do with the latest agenda of people like Dawkins to stick it to the Xtians, or whatever his damage is this month. It has nothing to do with anyone's views on reality, mine included. (My theory is we are all really dead and this is the afterlife. We are all doomed to this hell of mediocrity for all eternity! This really is as good as it gets, baby! Bwahahaaha!)

Ahem. Anyway, I hate it because all my life "bright" has been used to describe a child that was really average-to-mediocre in everything he or she did, but was a simpering little suck-up -- I mean, was clean, neat, had good social skills, and always turned their homework assignments in on time. And then there is the sound of the word, which I loathe when it is used to describe people thusly. I just envisage all these people saying to each other "I'm a Bright!" "My daughter is a Bright child!" with the big jaw-stretching grimace-y smile that this word makes the lips and teeth do, and I just want to do violence to someone.

(For some reason, phrases such as "bright light" don't bother me.)

You know, I'm not religious -- but these days I content myself with saying "I'm not religious." I don't need to highjack a word to make myself feel all yummy inside about my convictions or lack thereof.

And here's some high-school-level arguments in favor of this latest atrocity against the English language. Yeah, anyone who is religious is just a dumb ole poopyhead. [/PARAPHRASE OKAY?] That's so convincing! Why, I'll bet the pope his own self is packing his robes away and calling in a plane ticket to Cancun as we speak. The heck with all this Big Pretend Man in the Sky stuff! What the world needs more of is people saying "nyah nyah nyah" to other peoples' most deeply-held beliefs. That'll get 'em on our side.

June 25, 2003

Starve them for our own good

Chuck Simmins and Kathy Kinsley comment on recent protests against feeding the starving. Actually, the protests are against using "genetically manipulated" crops and other modern farming techniques in third world countries (that is, feeding the starving). In other words: let them eat cake made with wheat grown the good, old-fashioned "organic" way; that is, the way that isn't working anymore in much of Africa and other third world countries -- the ways we abandoned here in the West centuries ago, except for a minority of granola-heads.

I have a simple test of judging organically-grown produce vs. produce grown using those horrid "modern" methods that are supposed to turn the human race into mutant three-eyed monsters or something. (Which, however, live to be ninety-five years old and die fat and rich, but who cares about that when you have an icky third eye in the middle of your forehead! Actually, I think it would be cool to have a third eye in the middle of my forehead. The two I already have don't work that well.)

Anyway, the test is this: I go to the produce section and look at the organic vegetables. Then I look at the Eville Mutation-Inducing vegetables. I observe that the Eville Mutation-Inducing vegetables are larger, more colorful, and less-blemished than their good, old-fashioned naturally-fertilized counterparts. I buy the Eville Mutation-Inducing veggies (which are also about two-thirds cheaper than the organic stuff), take them home, eat them. And yes, I have tasted both versions of veggies and I have been unable to discern any taste difference.

So, we shouldn't foist our Eville Mutation-Inducing agricultural techniques and seed crops, ones we have used to make us into the most overfed nation on earth, onto the poor, starving third-worlders, because European Union agribusinesses will sufferwe can't let Uncle Sam do anything that makes it look goodwho needs so many black and brown people anyway? It's population controlIt makes granola-munching hippies, who shit fifteen times a day due to their fiber-intensive "healthy" diets, feel better if people everywhere are as miserable as they areit might benefit the companies that manufacture and sell these techniques and crops. We can't feed starving people if there is a chance that someone somewhere might make a profit off it the act. A corporation that makes a profit is more evil than mass starvation. Have I got that right?

I need a sleep charm

I went to bed last night fully intending to read no more than a chapter or two of the Harry Potter book before closing my eyes. Hahahahahaha! I couldn't force myself to put it down until eight in the morning. My head feels like it's plugged with cotton, and I am out of cream for my coffee.

I suppose I'll have my review of the book up in a couple of days. If I survive no proper sleep. Also it's cloudy and looks like rain again, which means the air outside it like warm soup.

June 24, 2003

Patriotism vs. Nationalism

One more thing -- Mrs. du Toit has a useful definition of patriotism as opposed to nationalism -- and it's only a footnote to this entry. But I think it might help some people out there who still quake in fear when they see someone with a US flag bumper sticker to read it.

Hate mail updated

As promised, "Mork's" third letter. We've become such pals, him and me. It's so nice to find a special friend. Isn't the internet wonderful?

And later, when I get around to it, I may add earlier correspondence from some other "special friends" who have communicated their love for me to the hate mail page. Because on the internet, no one can hear you scream, but everyone can laugh at you.

June 23, 2003

Up in the sky -- it's a bird, it's a plane, it's

Image search

Argh. I knew there was a reason I should have opted for a dvd burner: I have been looking for an image of Frodo from the Council of Elrond scene in Fellowship of the Ring; specifically, that one part where he grabs his forehead and makes a face when Gimli tries to smash the One Ring with an axe. I can't make myself go through another We Heart Elijah! or Welcome to (Insert Fake Elvish-sounding Name)'s Lord of the Rings Fan Club website. Help a sister out.

The perfect man

...would not do any of the things in this list. Not to me, unless he wanted to be the perfect male corpse. Here are my responses to the fourteen points (there were supposed to be more, but the person whose site the list came from was only able to make it to number fourteen):

1. Know how to make you smile when you are down!

Leave me alone. That makes me smile.

2. Try to secretly smell your hair, but you always notice.

The hell? Don't freaking sniff me, you weirdo.

3. Stick up for you, but still respects your independence.

No one does this. No one. Don't even bother dreaming of it.

4. Give you the remote control during the game.

"Oh good, the game's on! That means I won't have him bugging me" (like, wanting to smell my hair and stuff) "for at least two hours."

5. Come up behind you and put his arms around you.

Do this if you want me to jump ten feet in the air and then kill you on the way down for scaring the crap out of me.

6. Play with your hair.

The hell--? Get your hands out of my hair, bitch! Unless you like cat saliva all over your hand. My cat likes to sit behind me on the back of the futon and lick my head.

7. His hands always find yours.

I am usually writing or typing or doing something like that. So if he finds my hand and messes up what I am doing he's going to pull back a nub.

8. Be cute when he really wants something.

Unless he looks like this, the cute shit isn't going to get much of a response from me. As a matter of fact, looking like this won't get Mr. Cute what he wants. (It may get me what I want, but that's another matter altogether.)

9. Offer you plenty of massages.

Show me the guy who will be satisfied with merely giving you "plenty of massages," and I will show you your paid masseur.

10. Dance with you, even if he feels like a dork.

I don't dance. I hate to dance. I watched Footloose and secretly sympathized with the dance-hating preacher.

11. React so cutely when you hit him and it actually hurts.

What. The. Hell. This is so psychotic. And they say women never abuse men.

12. Drive 5 hours just to see you for 1.

I would have liked to have seen the look on my then-boyfriend's face if I had told him to leave one hour after driving all the way down to Miami from Orlando to see me.

13. Stare at you.

What?!?!? Whoever put this list together is some kind of major freak.

14. Call for no reason.

I hate that. I hate talking on the phone anyway. I hate getting "calls for no reason" even more. Anyway, how flattering is it to get a phone call from your significant other and to be told, when you ask why he called, "Oh, no reason."

So anyway. I guess I am not "romantic," or whatever the originator of this list (it was one of those email things) is trying to be. Yay me.

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

So. According to Janeane Garofalo, only dumb, mean people join the Republican party, "use the word evildoer with a straight face" (I will never get why the words "evil" and "evildoer" are such stumbling blocks to some people, by the way -- I wonder what they would call someone who wanted to ban abortion? or someone who lit up a cigarette in public?), "love patriotism," and so on. Whatever, lady. Garofalo has obviously lost the ability to be funny, so she's decided to go the bitter crank route instead. She freaked out that dude from Scarborough Country, but it just makes me yawn.

About her series that Fox ABC dropped, supposedly because of her scary political views. I think that if the studio did that because they were afraid of getting hate mail, they are jerks, but that's par for the course for the Hollywood machine. It wouldn't surprise me if it were true. Of course, it was a stupid move on their part, because now they have given her a bigger axe to grind than if her show had been given a chance and failed on its own merits. But for all of the liberal views of the actors and other people that it employs, the Hollywood industry is conservative, not politically, but financially. The bottom line rules. As soon as a studio smells problems of any sort, its first instinct is to protect the bank account. They don't care what political views an actor holds so much as they care that the actor isn't going to make them trouble because of it. Middle-of-the-road actors like Garofalo, who probably does not make a great deal of money, are the ones who usually get the worst end of this deal. She has little influence despite her mouthing off, unlike more influential (and dangerous) people such as Barbra Streisand, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon. I almost feel sorry for her. But she is obviously not smart enough to realise that her antics are alienating more and more people, and that unlike the celebrities mentioned above, she really can't afford to do that.

A sorry example all right

When someone who has been "downing Smirnoff vodka and tonics" for two hours murders someone with whom he had had a verbal disagreement, what would you call that person? Well, someone named Niall, commenting over at Hot Buttered Death calls him an "example of the sorry state of your average American's psyche." He also blames this supposed state on the Bush administration, as if Dubya and co. had the power to magically control drunks from a distance. Funny, I always thought I was a pretty average American, but I've never killed anyone over a disagreement. Once I chased my sister around the house with a broom because she had been bugging me, though. But that was way before either Bush administration held Amerikkka in its iron grip. In fact I do believe the sisterly combat episode occurred during the Carter administration. Can I blame my murderous impulses towards my sister on Ole Jimmeh?

And now to bed

The world is not a pie

Robert Prather confronts someone calling him or herself "nobody," who insists, among other things, that the U.S. will suffer if Europe starts getting wealthier and more productive. ("Nobody" also thinks that is a good thing, as if it would be wonderful to have another populous, poor nation in the world.) Of course, "Nobody" assumes that the economic might of the U.S. is based on keeping the rest of the world down economically. What people like "nobody" don't realize is that on the contrary, we don't want the rest of the world to be poor. We want everyone to have wealthy, productive economies.

Poor countries are a drag and a burden. Time and money that should be put to productive use is diverted to keep poor nations from starving to death. Unproductive countries are a strain on the global economy. They are black holes that suck in everything and give nothing back. They aren't just speed bumps on the road to a better world, they are axle-destroying barricades.

The more a country produces, the more wealth it generates. Everyone benefits. I have almost no grasp of economic theory but that little bit is, or should be, obvious to anyone who is not on a shelf in the morgue. But these theory-steeped children, these marx-heads and foucault-fools, think that "production" means an Oppressed Worker turning a crank for twelve hours a day. They neither know nor care what it takes to get them that heated home with indoor plumbing and electric lights. They think it's a kind of magic -- and that every time someone in a highrise penthouse turns a switch, a light goes out in some African hovel. These are the people, of course, who are loudest in the anti-capitalist, anti-globalist, anti-anything-but-sitting-on-their-asses-chanting brigade. Everyone else is too busy working to waste time doing crap like that.

They laughs at us, they does

If you are vertically challenged or very self-confident, then this is the Middle Earth Species for you.
.......
Orcs:

At heart, aren’t most males really just fighting the urges of their inner Uruk-Hai?
.......
Elves:

Lust, lust, lust, you tarty thing YOU.
........
Hobbits:

They are always up for a party, love a good time and do well in pubs…its rather like fraternity boys all over again, isn’t it?
.....

Then there is the The Tolkien Traveler’s Guide to Middle Earth (on the other side of the same page):

Location: The Shire

[...]You are more in danger of bumping your head after falling off a pub table during an extended night of drinking at a local tavern than anything else in The Shire. [...]Be sure and bring hangover remedies with you.
........
Location: Rivendell

Fast Facts: Often thought to be the Ancient Aspen of Middle Earth, Rivendell is at once, old and mystic, modern and on the move.
........
Location: Mordor

Attractions: Well, the price is certainly right. Another plus: You will have absolutely no problems getting a reservation. Truly. Locals are ready to take your call as we speak (1-888-MORDORSUCKS).

Shopping: No.

Climate: For those of you looking to soak up some rays, Mordor is the tanning Mecca of Middle Earth. Just be sure and pack plenty of sunscreen.

June 22, 2003

Bored now

Wow, ain't love grand? I just got a lovely email from "Mork," whose real name seems to be Graham Howlett. (Anyone know this guy?) Anyway, here's the email (I've, um, cleaned it up a little -- this may not be a family blog, but you know, some things should be kept between two people):

Yeah, Andrea, like a typical internet bully, I can dish it out, but I've got a glass jaw.

So, "insulting" is the criterion? I rarely post a word that is not. It's just that yours are more effective than mine as is demonstrated by the fact that I had evidently proved that I wasn't prepared to take you on in a fair exchange.

As for "obscenity-filled", I'd love to explain to you why what I wrote is much more offensive than your "Go back to alt.binaries.masturbating.dwarfs and find someone who cares" comment (which really turned me on by the way -- but that newsgroup seems to have closed down. Sigh). It's just that I am too stupid to figure it out! It's not just how my calling you a crackwhore displayed how played-out my intellect was; I used the term because I haven't been able to afford my weekly spanking. Is it fair that dominatrixes charge such high prices?

I started this with my childish insults, and I escalated it at every turn. I am perfectly capable of making my points without personal insults, but if I don't take my medication, I can't stop typing stupid things. So, I do this to get off, but I know that if I keep coming after you, you'll keep making me look like a fool. But I-- I can't help it! It turns me on! It's the only thing that works! Have a heart -- help a five-hundred-pound internet junkie who hasn't seen his own penis in five years!

I love you.

"Mork"

What would Mork -- I mean, Mr. Howlett, do without people like me? Have a life, I guess. Oh well, whenever I hear Accept's "Balls to the Wall" playing on the radio I'll think of him.

Update, kiddies! -- he replied! Once again I decided to, er, make his missive "safe" for public viewing:

Hey, keep serving it up to my glass-jaw. I'm prepeared (sic) to keep publicizing how lame I am by adopting such spineless tactics - and then doing such an unfunny job of it - and I'm delighted you keep giving me the opportunity!

And, yeah, I am dumb enough to send you email. For that matter, I am so stupid that I sent you this second email.

So there you have it: me completely stupid and having no life, and you out there being just so wonderful in every way.

What's not to like?

Best regards,
"Mork"

P.S. - perhaps some remedial reading tuition would be in order - it's been a long time since I was SLAPPED like a crack whore. If only I could meet you in person, so you could slap me over and over and make me your bitch!

Alas! I am not into such practices, though I have heard it's a great way to give one's biceps a workout. But I have the feeling that Mr. G. will be able to find someone to fulfill his needs.

Where has the internet gone?

Site stuff

Yes it looks different, no I'm not doing it to torment you. I had to go back to a standard MT stylesheet and template setup to solve the comments info problem. It's a temporary fix -- when I have more time (hah) I will try to figure out what they changed in the templates that caused my cookies or something to go belly-up.

Also, I now have a new comment troll policy. Trolls will not be banned and their comments will not be deleted. Instead, all trollish commentary will be changed to slavish praise of myself. For example, "Mork" left the following comments in this post:

What I don't understand, Andrea, is this: why do you keep linking to pages on which you've been slapped down like a two-bit crack whore?

Can it really be that you imagine that your back-of-the-third-grade-classroom insults pass as witty repartee in any company but your own?

I mean, I had been chortling away to myself that you seemed to have fifty different ways of saying "I know you are, but what am I", and then on this thread you come right out and say it . . . seriously!

Wetherall had one thing right: you're not in his league.

And:

Gee, Andrea, posting comments under other people's names.

That, as we say here, is as weak as piss.

As you can see, I changed each to:

What I don't understand, Andrea, is this: why do these silly people keep coming back for more?

Can it really be that they imagine that their back-of-the-short-bus insults pass as witty repartee in any company but their own?

I mean, I had been chortling away to myself that they seemed to have only one way of saying "I am an idiot, but I can't help proving it to the world over and over", and they keep on commenting!

Wetherall had one thing right: you're not in his league. You're actually the most intelligent, sexy, amazing woman on the internet! I want to be your body slave!

And

Gee, Andrea, posting comments under other people's names.

That, as we say here, is a brilliant idea!

That will be the comment troll policy from now on, or until I get bored. If you don't want your witty, devastating putdown to be changed to pathetic praise of me, then I suggest you don't post here.

Bills and other unsightly things

Uh oh. And on that note, yesterday was my last day at my job. I'm not too worried -- yet -- I've got my resume all ready to fax. I wasn't fired or anything, but I had come to the realization that working part time and living off student loans was no longer a viable life plan. I hope to have a full-time job, or at least a full-time temp job, by the end of the week. Yes, kiddies, I'm going back to a 9-to-5. The bachelor's degree is going to have to wait a while. (I only have a couple of classes left. I was burned out anyway, and needed a break.) I also wanted my weekends back. My social life, such as it is, had come to a dead halt since my full-time days were Saturday and Sunday. Contrary to popular opinion, I do like to spend time with real live people occasionally.

But yeah, I feel Colby Cosh's pain. I just love that oops where did the bottom go? feeling. Drop on by his place and donate a buck or two -- the content is better, and it costs a lot of money to live in Canada, what with heating bills and all those taxes for that great national health care plan they have.

And to reply to Caz's martyred cries (scroll way down past the stuff about bras): no, I don't think you are a lesser being for not caring for Harry Potter books. I think you are a lesser being for condemning others for liking Harry Potter books. People like you who think you know What Is Really Good For Us chap my hide. I'm so sorry if you have to share a planet with others who don't think exactly like you.

It's not hip to be square

The Poor Man has some advice for the Algore's new synapse-burst, that Anti-Fox, Liberal Teevee Channel thing. (You know -- to combat all the right-wing Republican-adoring tv channels... all three of them: Fox, Pax and that other Godstuff channel with the people with the big frozen hair and the starving children -- which to fit with the other two should be called Shux, or maybe Styx). Anyway, here is a sample of his advice:

2) No Bill Moyers - I'm sure Bill Moyers is a really nice guy, and really smart and thoughtful fellow and all that, but he really sucks, and he needs to be kept off TV. Snipers need to be posted with tranquilizer darts and guard dogs need to be given scaps of his old Bill Cosby Collection sweaters to sniff and ordered to attack on sight. Look at that show NOW, and look what he's done with it - a bunch of earnest driver's ed videos about how Bush is destroying the country, followed by in-depth analysis by Barbara Kingsolver. It's unwatchable. It's like you're six years old again and have to sit quietly like a gentlemen while your old aunties discuss what kind of cassarole they are bringing to the church luncheon.

It's all good advice -- yes, even having Al Franken paired up with John Jon* Stewart. Stewart would make Franken look like a soured has-been, and the shock might actually drop-kick him into actually attempting to be funny instead of coasting on his former association with SNL.

The PM forgot one essential thing, though: keep Gore, and for dog's sake keep Tipper, far away from the camera. That pair has driven more people to tick off "Republican" or "Independent" on their voter's registration forms than a thousand stained blue dresses.

*Gary Farber says it's "Jon" so I will believe him. I could just look it up on the Comedy Channel website, couldn't I? Okay, It's Jon. Hey, I could have spelled his last name "Stuart" too.

June 21, 2003

Stupid template problem

Yes, my comments aren't remembering anyone's info. No, I can't figure out why. The "var HOST" line says "www.spleenville.com" like it should. This isn't a problem on Tim Blair's site. I am exhausted, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so I will look into it further sometime over the weekend.

Pound of flesh

Supposedly the great civil liberties struggles are behind us. So what exactly is going on? Is this righting old wrongs, or plain old revenge? How about this? And will this help people to stop judging others by the color of their skin?

That wild and crazy web

Alphabet soup, alphabet stew, fried alphabet--

When I was a child I went through life happily unaware that there was any such thing as a "researcher in children's literature," though I am sure that there must have been. I think reading something like the statements in this article would have killed my enjoyment of several favorite works. Here's a sample (the subject is the Harry Potter books):

A literary icon develops the power of myth, generating meanings beyond the immediate narrative.

The whole rest of it is a bunch of back-of-the-book-jacket clichés. ("...his characters achieve an imaginative reality." "... narrative twists and turns..." "...dazzling allure." "...marketing has indisputably endowed him with cult status." Feh.) Via The Onering.net.

And there aren't any Diversity Guidelines posted in the Hogwarts hallways!

Hogwarts celebrates Christmas and Halloween, but there are no feasts for Rosh Hashanah or Diwali. This is not so much multiculturalism as naive monoculturalism.

Oh come on, Adams, you can't be serious. I wonder if this is some sort of inept attempt at satire. If this article were anywhere but in the Groaning Wad, I'd be sure of it.

Here comes the March of the Class Strugglers:

The Dursleys are Rowling's epitome of the modern middle class: crass, mean-spirited and grasping, living in a detached house in the suburb of Little Whinging. Vernon works in middle management while Petunia is a curtain-twitching housewife.

The Dursleys read the Daily Mail, support capital punishment and lavish video games and junk food on their spoilt son Dudley. They dream of bigger company cars and holidays in Spain, rather than traditional Tory visions of warm beer and village greens. The Dursleys, not Voldemort, are the real villains.

This looks more like projection. Rowland's portrayal of the Dursleys is satirical, but it is quite clear to someone who hasn't read the books through a Marxist haze that Voldemort is the real villain. The Dursleys, unpleasant though they are, are merely pathetic and buffoonish. But to a Activist of the People™ villains such as Voldemort are not the enemy -- rather they are to be admired for their "individuality" and ruthlessness at attaining their goals. It is the hapless Dursleys of the world, materialistic and compromised (and too much like one's own clueless, middle-class family), who are the true enemy.

It's a planetoid!

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I have found it -- the Biggest Ego on the Internet. He is one of Tim Blair's blog-flies, a fellow (well -- a being, anyway) who calls himself "Mork." The comments that won him his title can be found in this post. Scroll, my children, and you shall come upon these pronouncements:

As for "it's only Tim's opinion". No shit. And I've given mine. And mine's more rational, principled and consistent than Tim's. So there you go.

Man, the most disturbing thing about political bulletin boards and comment pages like this is that you realize how few people are able/inclined to think for themselves, rather than parroting whatever they hear from their current gurus.

and

Mork is more rational and principled than Tim because he manages to stick to the principles he requires of others.

Respect, people. "Mork" must have a gonads of steel to type that with a straight face.

Your pretty face is going to hell

Acidman has a running thread on the subject of women's blogs, and how they are just too durned pretty, like those homes where the toilet paper is hidden under a crocheted cover. So what do you think -- is my blog 1) too pretty, or 2) not pretty enough? I've been feeling like doing a (drumroll) site redesign...

You're under arrest!

Someone named Jack Cluth at the People's Republic of Seabrook thinks the US needs to "let someone else be the world's moral policeman." I hadn't realized that was what we were doing -- I also didn't realize that there was an argument vis à vis the morality of ridding the world of terrorist and fascist scum, but I'm naive in that way. But the funniest thing about this entry? Guess who Mr. Cluth is apparently willing to be the new "moral arbiter" of the world: Belgium. Now, Belgium is a charming country or so I am told (on my one day in that country everything happened to be closed -- some sort of "saint's day"), but he's the first person I've come across who has actually taken that country's "war crimes accusations" seriously. I've got to visit more lefty blogs -- looks like they are pure comedy gold.

My own private Idaho

Some people do seem to be under the misapprehension that blogs are supposed to be democratic or something. Well, some people enjoy the sort of mudpie throwing contest that often results in an "open comment forum" -- but that's their problem. For myself, I assure all of you that I will continue to run this blog the way Fidel runs Cuba.

(PS: think invoking the sacred name of Fidel will get me respect from the lefties now? I mean, their respect is so important, or so I am always being told. Maybe I should replace the picture of Frodo with a photo of the Bearded One. What do you think?)

Update: Phil at Flying Chair comments. He will get an extra ration of rice!

June 17, 2003

All the little people

On blogfeuds and comment trolls

I am going to let a guy have the last word -- the indespensable Jim Treacher. His new MT-ized blog hadn't even been up a week before he got to taste of the vinegary wine of Innernut Luv... and as a consequence he has come out with the hands-down Best Line Ever:

And to the bored dipshits out there who didn't think things were miserable enough already and tried to start even more fights between people, do your little victory dance. Be sure not to forget the move at the end where you go fuck yourself so hard that it affects the Earth's orbit around the sun.

Okay, that's two lines. So sue me.

Oh yeah -- and read his review of Attack of the Clones. I haven't seen this thing yet. However, a friend of mine gave me a video tape of Left Behind. So should I watch Kirk Cameron laying down some fierce Bible shizzat on Satan or George Lucas's Interstellar Wankathon? Decisions, decisions...

More fun at the Baghdad Museum

Via Cronaca, reports of more fun and games at the Baghdad Museum. The board of antiquities office wants Donny George, their head and the curator of the museum (as well as a former Ba'ath party apparatchik) to resign, staff members charge that he told them to "fight the US troops or face the sack" -- which could either mean get fired or get tied up in a sack and thrown into the Euphrates (in Saddam-run Iraq, what who knew which they would get?) -- and so on.

Cave troll

In light of remarks left on this post by one John Callendar, proprietor of an anti-everything site appropriately called Lies.com, it has occurred to me that of all the little internet conflicts that erupted here on my blog, by far the most unpleasant ones have been started by males. I have also noticed that all of the female arguers have eventually apologized for starting a fuss or at least backed off the hateful talk, at least conceding that I have the right to my own opinion on my own website. Whereas the male commenters have continued to attempt to have the last word. Now, I'm not into this male-vs.-female thing, in general, but I find it interesting how considering that I get most of my flack from those calling themselves liberal, and that a tenet of modern liberalism is the equality of men and women, how it so far has seemed to be the men who are most unpleasant and who refuse to leave me -- a woman -- alone or stop commenting on my blog when I request it.

The argument in question isn't even an argument -- it has descended to "You're a bitch, I'm going to bother you about it because I can." They aren't going to get anywhere with this -- it's just some sort of chest-beating gesture. They don't even seem to care, or realize, that they are making themselves seem much more unpleasant than me. All that matters is they must win, no matter what the battle or outcome. It adds nothing to the "dialogue" or "discussion" they are always babbling about. It certainly doesn't attract me or anyone else to their cause, whatever that is. It makes me wonder just how seriously they take their own beliefs.

Addendum: and to answer Mr. Callendar's charge -- no, I don't particularly "get off" on disagreements and flames. I try to have fun, here on this webbe syte. When someone posts something nasty, I am certainly not going to let them get away with it without responding in kind. Saying people "get off" on things is the usual charge people throw at others who won't bow down to them. Perhaps he would rather I did as some other people do, and turn off my comments, or post something about how "hurt" I am, or perhaps take down my site altogether. Does he "get off" on attacking people on their own website?

Trolls and other home invaders

Okay, Mr. Paulsen has had enough of a scare -- though the phone call he refers to (see the comments) could have come from anyone for any reason -- if he is as obnoxious in real life as he is on other people's websites, I am sure there is a long list of people who'd love to call him names.

By the way, I do not approve of calling people's phone numbers and harrassing them. If someone who admires me thought they were helping by making an obscene phone call to Mr. Paulsen, let me tell this person now that they were not. If I had wanted Mr. Paulsen called, I would have done it myself. I put his info up on this page (I have since removed the address and phone number) to show Mr. Paulsen that one can't hide on the internet behind a fake name. (Actually, I wasn't even sure that this was his real info, until he helpfully confirmed that it was.) And no one here is my "little toadie" -- they made the decision to do what they did (if they really did) on their own time and out of their own free will, and if they get in trouble with the police because of it that is their fault not mine.

And to answer Mr. Paulsen's repeated claims that what he did was okay, because my website is "publicly accessible," I must remind him (and anyone else) that this site is not an open forum like a newsgroup or a message board. I consider this site to be more like a house -- my house. Sure, a house is publicly accessible, in that it has doors and windows, but there are also laws and customs regarding how the public must behave in and around someone's private home. I am sure that Mr. Paulsen would not appreciate having strangers watch him through the windows of wherever he lived, even if it was only to observe his most innocuous behavior (watching tv, eating, and so on). Also, I am sure that if he invites a friend, acquaintance, or stranger into his home he expects those persons not to start fistfights, smash the furniture, pee on the carpet, or call him, the host, names. Why does he and other trolls like him think this is fine to do on someone's personally-owned website? (I consider calling someone names and generally being unpleasant without adding anything to the conversation to be the equivalent of peeing on someone's carpet.)

I pay for this site, and I provide it free of charge (donation buttons notwithstanding). I consider the comments part of the site to be kind of like a salon where people can get together and discuss things. I don't mind a little snark, some disagreement -- but if you can't keep to the barest minimum standards of civility then I suggest you find some other weblog to read. There are so many other blogs out there. For the most part I do try, when I leave a comment on someone else's blog, not to call them names, swear at them, and so forth, no matter how much I disagree with what they have said. (That's what I have my own blog for.) If I have been as rude as Mr. Paulsen on anyone else's blog, let me take this opportunity to apologize, and say that it will not happen again. But as far as I can recall, I have not gone to anyone else's website and left comments calling the host or his other commenters such names as "fucking bitch." After all, I am not in my own "house," as it were.

On the other hand, in my own "house" -- this blog -- I can curse and swear all I want. I do try to at least make my tantrums entertaining. If you really can't stand what I have to say, and want to call me names, use your own website to do it. Then I will mock your post on my site, and you can mock me further on yours, and so on. But you don't get to have a nice, pretty site full of sensitive poetry, and then use mine to make your messes. I did not set up this website for you, anymore than I pay rent on an apartment for someone else to live in. I really don't see how hard this is to understand.

June 16, 2003

More on the non-looting in Baghdad

David at Cronaca features an article in the Washington Post wherein a Professor James Russell bemoans the effect the exaggerated accounts of the looting of the Baghdad Museum is having, but he sidesteps the question of why so many of the museum officials basically lied. (As a matter of fact, you should be visiting Cronaca for all your updates on this and other reports from the archaeology world.)

Harrassment warning

There's a person calling himself "Sparky" who has been posting nasty comments on my site* and has refused to cease doing so despite repeated demands and bannings of several IPs he has used. A quick whois search of the url (sparkmonkey.com) he left in his blog comments info brought up this information:

Here are the several IP addresses that showed as his that I have banned:

207.44.154.35
66.168.62.160
66.222.33.52
140.186.45.14
66.222.108.216

I wonder what the law says regarding someone who refuses to stop harrassing someone on the internet?

*He first graced my site with his presence here. As you can see, he started right off with the sweet talk. Then nothing for ages; I thought he had gotten the message to fuck off. I guess not. I think there is a pattern to this, but I am not sure what it is, nor do I much care.

Liar's poker

You know what I really don't like? When someone says something controversial, clearly looking to stir people up -- which they will claim was just an attempt to start an honest discussion -- and not only flames people right and left for disagreeing with or even questioning his or her premises, but then later reveals on that they lied and/or used trickery (say, they omitted certain details that would have given people a clue as to where this person was coming from) to manipulate the discussion. This is the way to get on my personal shit list.

As somebody said somewhere (I'd attribute quote if I could remember who said it) "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" -- and thus for years the internet "community" had a reputation as being nothing more than a forum that people used to cause each other even more trouble and heartbreak than was possible IRL. I am not much into this idea of the web as a hand-holding-safe-place-lovefest, but I thought that at least where blogs were concerned people were dispensing with the bullcrap and saying what they really meant. You know, "communicating." Privacy is one thing -- I'm not saying everyone should use their real name and post the intimate details of their personal lives. But hiding behind a mask and snickering at the havoc you cause is not only pathetic, it's so fucking 1998.

You know, I'm with Jim Treacher: I would like the internet to quit sucking right now. Some people could just quit being assholes, that would really help. I'm not going to hold my breath, though. (No links, this person does not need any more publicity or whatever it is they were after.)

We the Sheeple

The award for Most Condescending Remark of the Week goes to Adam of Words Are Mean Things -- oops! I mean Words Mean Things, in the comments to this post. Sayeth the man named for the original man:

Americans are emotional and have little or no memory.

Yeah, I guess that's why we are still bickering over the effects of things like the Civil War, World War 2, Vietnam, and -- what was that thing that happened in New York a couple of years ago? Some sort of transportation accident?

Adam has a stern warning on his blog: "don't try your amateur psychoanalysis on me. EVER." Okay. I'll just call him a big jerk instead.

Update:speaking of condescension -- man, I love it when someone sashays into a blog comments fray and acts as if no one but them had figured out yet how to use those weird "search engine" thingies on this here "enter-net." (Scroll wayyyy down to "eve's" comment, and read my reply, if you are curious.)

The news they don't show on tv

Yeah. Let's see, I was flipping through channels the other day and came upon a news report by the BBC. I can't remember what channel it was -- CNN, MSNBC, BBC America -- it wasn't Fox News, every time I turn that on they are having that Greta Van Susteren (however you spell her name) creature yacking about Martha Stewart or the Hillary Horror, or Hannity and Colmes is on and they are yelling at each other (or some other guy) about the Democrats. Anyway, I came upon this "news report" out of Baghdad. I put the quotes there for a reason. The reporter/journalist/presenter/whatever was some blond British woman whose name I didn't pay attention to. She was interviewing an Iraqi. Naturally the subject was how everything sucks in Iraq because of those Bad Americans and their war. Why, during the battle an American tank fired on a "crowd of innocent bystanders" and the man's son was "caught in the crossfire." Then we cut to the interior of somebody's house (the interviewee's, supposedly) where the man had his son lying face down so his father could pull up the boy's shirt dramatically and show the cameras a bandage patching the back of one of the boy's shoulders. This was supposedly where the kid caught one of Uncle Sam's bullets, though the bandage was about the size of my palm, no bigger than the one the doctor put on a boil I'd had lanced last summer. In fact, the boil was on about the same place on my shoulder blade as where the kid's injury was.

The fact that this Iraqi had been "a policeman" during Saddam Hussein's reign was mentioned as if it was no big deal, and had nothing to do with the fact that of all the Iraqi people to interview the BBC just happened to choose this guy. I guess it never occurred to the wide-eyed innocent reporters on the scene that the fact that this fellow was an ex-member of Saddam-era "law inforcement" might have had a lot more to do with the man's unhappiness with current events than his son's non-life-threatening injury. In any case I wasn't surprised that the kid never showed his face (he kept it buried in his arms throughout the ordeal) -- I can only imagine what it must have felt like to the kid -- he seemed no older than fourteen -- to have to act all pitiful and victimized in front of a foreign female. He had probably been using his wound as teenage bragging material. (I can see it now: "Hey! Hassan! Ali! Guess what! I got shot by the Americans!" "Wow! No way! Did it hurt?" "Nah! I hardly felt a thing!" "Let me see!" "Dude, you're gonna have a scar! Cool!") Then he gets home to find out his dad is having the reporters over and he would have to play the Pitiful Injured Boy. I would have died. I wouldn't blame the kid if he ran away from home.

Anyway, on that note, Denny Wilson has a letter From Baghdad (scroll down) which recounts that all is not ill-will and whining among the Iraqis. But you won't see that in the teevee news, most likely -- nor will we see anything recounting what the Army Corps of Engineers is doing for the Iraqi people. Dipnut has the details.

Another thing I saw as I was flipping through channels was one of those religious commercial things on one of the Christian channels. Some guy was saying how the most common disease among children and teenagers was not AIDs or anything like that, it was pessimism. Leaving aside the source of the comment and the postmodern notion of "pessimism" being a disease, I am not surprised that most teenagers are depressed. Just think of what is on the teevee news: either inane "local interest" goo or all the ways in which the world sucks and how (often implied if not stated outright) it is all America's, or at least Western Civilization's, fault. I'm not a fan of the "hide bad things from the Children™" nonsense, but sometimes I wonder if the Concerned Ones responsible for our Do-Gooder media, with their worries about how everything is connected in some sort of sticky metaphysical web, has really given any thought to the effect that their doomsaying is having on actual living people. No, don't answer that -- it was a rhetorical question.

June 13, 2003

Eden restored

HAWR AL HAMMAR, Iraq -- It's 100 degrees at noon, the hour when the sky itself seems to melt into chrome-colored lakes--rippling pools that shimmer like mirrors in the vast salt pans of southern Iraq. These days, however, those liquid sheets of light are no mirage. They are real water--and one of the most poignant symbols of liberation since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"This will bring back the fish, the birds and the animals," said Jawad Mutashir, a grizzled Marsh Arab who came to watch, for the pure joy of it, water from the Euphrates River gurgling back into the long-dead swamp that had been his ancestral home.

Bands of impoverished villagers upstream had cut the levees that Hussein built expressly to destroy Iraq's sprawling wetlands. Unshackled for the first time in years, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were now refilling thousands of acres of dry marsh.

"Thanks be to Allah for giving our water back!" declared grinning old Mutashir, one of thousands of nomads displaced by Hussein's cataclysmic reclamation projects. His dingy robes flapping about him, he hugged himself with his scrawny arms and added, "Thanks be to George Bush!"

More than two months after Baghdad fell to coalition troops, an extraordinary act of cultural defiance is unfolding almost unnoticed on the burning plains of southern Iraq.

I'm sure someone somewhere will spin this to say that the Bush Junta™ is really doing some dastardly thing by allowing this to happen (all those poisons Rumsfeld sold to Saddam Hussein are going to leach into the marshes and turn all the Marsh Arabs into three-eyed mutants!). Or else the critics will say that Bush is cursing at the happiness of the Arabs there and trying to come up with ways to cover the marshes with Ooooiiilllll.

June 12, 2003

Lock and load

Okay, the heck with that Moxien shizzle, Kim du Toit shows the girls how to wage a proper blog war. He takes on Sgt. Stryker, who questioned Mr. Du Toit's, um, character, in this post. Who will be the last man standing? Both of them have access to firearms, so this could get bloody.

Frankly, my money's on Kim: I read Stryker's post and was all like "Huh? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Wilson?" It was clear that Kim exempted military and other essential personnel from his beef with drug testing. But maybe Stryker was trying to stir up trouble. Well, he's got it now!

The Dignity of Labor

In this discourse on academia's latest shenanigans, Amritas highlights a passage from a much-talked-about John Derbyshire article on immigration and meritocracy, which ends:

We no longer believe in the dignity of labor. We all want our kids to go to law school, and have convinced ourselves that they have a right to do so. What do you think the slogan “No child left behind” means

To that Amritas says:

I hope he's wrong I hope he's wrong I hope he's wrong.

I don't know that he is... but there has always been a rather schizophrenic view of manual labor in this country. It seems to be part of common immigrant aspirations for most immigrants to wish their children could get into college and get a nice "clean" job in an office. And there is definitely a divide when it comes to the educated classes, though I think it breaks down by region as well. (I can't be sure, but I think that it is more common in the South than the North for academics to be willing to let their hair down -- so to speak -- and hang out with "good old boys" such as mechanics and so on. My example is my teacher father, who preferred the company of the "working class" to hanging out with his fellow academics -- though most of them could be found down at the bar as well. But that was then, this is now. Things might have changed.)

Anyway, I've known people who had decided to dump their college careers to go into their fathers' less-academic (but monetarily more lucrative) fields, such as mechanics. There was also an element of satisfaction they found in the more manual job that was lacking in the classroom. So I think there will always be people who will prefer manual labor to the pristine confines of an office or classroom.

Wailing at Major Damnation

Wombats of Mad Delerium

The Reason of Voice guy emailed a request to me to post a link to this post. I'm not running a public service blog here, but I'm in a good mood, so why not. Anyway, it's his take on the whole WMD thing. I tried to post this in his comments thing but it's one of those free programs and it wasn't working. So I'll post it here:

I'm sick of the whole subject, but if you ask me your entire take on this falls apart when you say: "Wake up - there's nothing there and probably hasn't been for quite a while."

I do so love it when people say "Wake up!" as if they are the only ones awake in a world of hypnotized sleepwalking sheeple.

And to continue, you're assertion can't be proved until we have looked through every inch of that country. As a matter of fact, we have found many of the components that make up WMDs, that the Iraqis were not supposed to have (mobile biolabs and so on). But I'm not going to get into that. And I am not "throwing myself in front of a bullet to protect Bush" -- he's a big president, he can take care of himself.

To tell you the truth, I am not sure where you are coming from here. Also, your font size is too tiny. I can resize the text, but still.

I said I was in a good mood? Nothing like telling someone off in the AM to get the blood moving, I say.

Tim says: "Hamas, like all terrorist organisations, is destined to lose..."

Interesting. Have the IRA lost then? Must have missed that newsflash while I was having a ciggie outside the rehearsal room.

When someone pointed out that the IRA's stated objectives (a united Ireland, Brits out of Eire, all Protestants gone) Mr. "Scott" replied:

On the other hand, the IRA has a seat at the political table and had its bombers and murderers released from prison.

So they haven't lost, either.

Would the peace process have been quicker if the IRA hadn't been blowing things and people up? I have no idea- I'm just a dead rock singer, remember - but in any case the IRA is still kicking on as a viable political force.

"Viable political force"? I like that. Yeah, they got some recognition -- too much as it is, but the only reason they got it is because they finally agreed to stop blowing people up. Hamas et al have not only not agreed to stop killing people (I'd say Jews, but they don't seem too reluctant to kill everyone else, so it's "people"), they brag about their intentions of killing more people.

Anyway, here is what I said in Tim's comments:

Hey, Fake Dead Rockstar -- how about thinking that maybe if the IRA hadn't been so busy blowing people up they'd have gotten what they want sooner rather than later? You don't know much about history, do you? [AD HOMINEM ATTACK] Are you stupid or do you just play an idiot on MTV? [/AD HOMINEM ATTACK]

How many centuries have the Irish been fighting with the English? How many decades have the IRA (who are a bunch of fascist communists who use the religious divide as a convenient cover for their true intentions) been blowing up kiddies and grandmas in NI?

*Oh, and his cute "I'm just a dead rockstar" shtick is such a dead joke that it doesn't even stink anymore. It's a dried-up mummy of a joke. No -- a fossil.

Catfight

Aaarrrgghh! The insane Moxie-vs.Moxie webfight has erupted in Spleenville -- to be precise, at Tim Blair's site. Here's my take on the matter:

No one who can see lightning, hear thunder, and is warm to the touch could possibly have thought that Moxiepop.com and Moxie.nu were the same website much less the same person. Moxie.nu is, if you ask me (and I have only read her site once or twice) being a real asshole about this. I don't care about the established writer Ellay-Hollywood, "my Brand" kashizzle. "Moxie" is a commonly known and rather outdated slang word, not a special name that Moxie.nu came up with all by herself. The girl at Moxiepop.com took the name from a popular soda that they sell in part of the country and if they haven't sued her than where does Moxie.nu get off with calling the girl an "imitator"? Moxiepop's anger at being basically labelled a thief is justified.

However -- the actions of friends of both women are another matter. Posting obscene comments, calling Moxie.nu the c-word referring to her as "that ho," and so on, and harassing Moxiepop with childish names ("MoxiePOOP" -- oh, ha ha ha) and obscene emails and IMs (note to Moxiepop: you really should restrict your IM list to just your Buddy list; that will keep the weirdoes away), and so on, is not only infantile, it is making both women look bad. Stop it, all of you.*

I think the KKK thread is more fun, really...

*I am referring to the comments threads in both Dawn Olsen's site and Right-Thinking.com more than to the owners of those sites, though both Dawn and Lee have also contributed more than enough to this wrestling match. But it's their commenters who have really taken the fight to a new low. Do we really have to let blogs descend to the level of newsgroups, people?

Oh... Kay Kay Kay

I see the K3discussion is starting to get lively, and I have a few things to say about what's being said -- but not tonight, I'm exhausted. I'm going to watch the end of McMillan and Wife and go to bed.

The original internet hippie

“In the beginning was the Blog, and the Blog was with Dave, and the Blog was God. The same was in the beginning with Dave. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness (everyone but Dave) comprehended it not.”

Rejected license plate slogans

Iowa: The "Holy God This Is Boring" State
Minnesota: The People Who Laugh At Garrison Keillor
Nevada: Hookers and Craps -- American Paradise
Ohio: Mayo Goes On Everything
Vermont: Birthplace of the Insufferable Hippie
Washington: Not The Cool Washington, The Other One
Washington, D.C.: Try The Crack
Wyoming: I Live In Wyoming. Please Kill Me.

Florida's was kind of dull, though. I'd have said something like "Florida: Now Get Out!" since that is the sentiment of most of the people who are already here, including the people who just moved here yesterday.

Bernadette: Just what this country needs: a cock in a frock on a rock.

And

Bernadette: No, I'll join this converation on the proviso that we stop bitching about people talking about wigs, dresses, bust sizes, penises, drugs, night clubs, and bloody Abba! Tick: Doesn't give us much to talk about then, does it?

Then trying to log in and getting the same freaking error. (With my actual user ID and server IP, not the aliases I put in their place.) Anyway, I was just able to sign into my database control panel and everything seemed fine to my inexperienced eyes, and here I am able to make a post. Right?

Legless

That's the left -- or whatever they are, the Against Anything George W. Bush Does contingent. They don't have a leg to stand on. The latest evidence: according to Steve H., they can't even hold their own against Bill O'Reilly -- and it was three against one. (Steve H. also wins the award for Best Cruel Putdown. He says of Al Franken, concerning that dreadful Stuart Smalley movie, that he is "[t]he guy who wishes he was half the filmmaker David Spade is." Ouch ow ooh, that stings even me just reading it here.

Steve H. feels (well, observes and mocks), the pain of the left:

This reminds me of the left's sad attacks on President Bush. He hasn't screwed any interns, he hasn't bombed any aspirin factories, he's organized and disciplined, no prosecutor has ever narrowly chosen not to file rape charges against him, he hasn't committed perjury, he hasn't misappropriated the FBI files of his enemies, he hasn't sent the IRS to audit members of the opposition, and he hasn't been accused of stealing money in a real estate scam. So the press drops bombshells like, "His daughters have fake ID's!"

Not to mention all the "Soooo, where are the WMDs then, Mr. Smartypants!" accusations. You would think that at least someone would say that we are doing at least as good a job as the UN inspector team did -- better, even. You can't say that we don't have the wherewithal to go inspecting anything we please in Iraq now. But god forbid anyone point out the silver lining to the flea-turd hunters on the left.

Arthur Conan Doyle knew it

This is sad, but I must put Dave Sims in the Confederacy of Dunces category for this post, and this follow-up one, which are his attempts to get us to look at the "root causes" of why people would join the Ku Klux Klan. Here is what I put in the comments of his second post:

Dave, I think the reason you are so perplexed as to why these "friendly, non-racist people" would join the KKK is... because they were not, in fact, non-racist.

Please. I have lived in the South all my life. My mother's family is from Tennessee, my father grew up in Washington DC and Maryland during the Depression and World War 2. These people -- nice, friendly guys talking to another white guy -- pulled the wool over your eyes. Or maybe they don't feel that they are racists because they laugh at the Cosby Show on tv and don't think that lynching is okay anymore. Everyone has to live with themselves and most people choose to see themselves in the best light. And you, I think, are no racist -- you merely want to think of these people (so nice, so polite, so eloquent about their travails) as good people too. But they aren't.

They get the same reply from me as blacks do who join the Nation of Islam or some such pseudo-religious, racist organization, with the excuse that "there was no one else to turn to to help my people get ahead": Bullshit, sir and madam. There are a ton of groups poor white men and women could join, if join a group they must, to get help with getting a job or changing laws they think unfair, or whatever the other reasons were your aquaintances gave you. None of the other groups have the overtly and well-known -- to anyone who can see lightning, hear thunder, and is warm to the touch -- racist agenda of the Ku Klux Klan. I don't care how much money they donate to "good causes" and whatnot. I would tell your KKK-joining aquaintances that it doesn't matter how pretty you dress up after rolling in the garbage, you'll still stink.

I don't suppose the "I know what I am talking about because I come from that part of the country" argument will go down some peoples' craws any easier than Susanna's did -- she merely got slammed by one of his commenters as basically having betrayed her roots. (Whoo.) But forging on nevertheless, let me say this:

The criteria for what gets some groups identified as detrimental to civilization is not based on a zero-sum equation. The fact that our major problem this decade happens to be Middle-Eastern terrorism and the groups that engage in it does not mean that other groups -- such as the Ku Klux Klan -- get some of the burden of evil therefore lifted from their reputation. The fact that there are racist groups among African-Americans (such as Nation of Islam), Mexican-Americans (La Raza), and so forth does not mean that racist white groups get a pass. They are all bad, and the people who join them passed up many perfectly legit organizations because the racist groups gave them something they weren't going to get from the legitimate groups. It has nothing to do with wanting a better job, and everything to do with wanting to lord it over (even if only in basement meetings) the "other" people you blame for your bad luck.

I will not say that Dave Sims is a racist. But he has made the mistake many well-meaning people make: he has granted the powerless (or those he perceives as being powerless) moral sanction for their actions out of pity for their state. He forgets that just because a man is "disenfranchised" does not mean he can't do evil.

(The title refers to one of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Five Orange Pips." The story was written sometime in the late nineteenth century. If you read it you will see that the Ku Klux Klan already had quite a reputation by then. And I refuse to believe that a region so obsessed with the Civil War -- or as you might hear it termed in some parts of the South, the "War of Northern Aggression" -- can simultaneously produce people who have no idea of the reputation of the South's most notorious hate group. Of course, they must know -- or else, why would they think that becoming a Klan member (I almost wrote Klam -- hm, I think I will use that from now on) would be a great way of "put[ing] so many of the smart toffs’ knickers in a twist"?)

Update: the discussion continues. Dave replied to my comments, but I wasn't particularly satisfied with his reply:

Hi Andrea,

Oh I know there are many out-and-out sorry-ass racists in the Klan, what I'm trying to say is there are people joining for other reasons than hatred of blacks. The clear sense I got from the guys I talked with was that they hated the government much more than they hated blacks, they hated how the government was using blacks (in their perception) to keep them down.

Admittedly it's a short hop from there to hating blacks themselves, but the guys I spoke with made the distinction.

And you cannot name another organization of any significant profile who genuinely has the interests of the poor whites at heart.

And:

Andrea's comments have made me wonder how much any of us really know about the Klan today. Had I not had that encounter with actual Klansmen I'd hold as uninformed and ignorant a stereotype of them as some commenters (it's not to be implied here that I include Andrea as uninformed or ignorant) here hold.

Since very few commenters on these threads speak of actual experiences with the Klan itself, positive or negative, or encounters with Klansmen, I'm left to conclude that pretty much everybody's dealing with second-hand information.

I wonder if there'd be a market for a book taking an honest look at the Klan today, trying to figure out why people who at least profess non-racist views join it, what the majority of Klansmen actually think and believe and how they come to terms, as Andrea says how they live with themselves, joining an organization with such a dark history, even if they repudiate that history?

Well, thanks, but -- while none of my relatives (to my knowledge), ever had anything to do with the Klan, I sure as hell know that people they knew and grew up with did. And unfortunately there is still plenty of racism in the South. So much so that the idea of a "non-racist person" joining the Ku Klux Klan is laughable on its face. There is no reason for non-racist people to join the Klan in the South -- it's not as if the supply of white racists is running out down here. This is part of what I call the Bad Facts of Life in the South. I am not a Southern Culture-hater, but I am not going to close my eyes to its biggest flaw. So I said:

Dave, you missed or completely ignored my main issue, which is: no one who is not racist joins the Ku Klux Klan. I do not care what your friends told you. I do not care that they say they joined "because they hate the government." Its reputation is that set in stone, and there is no amount of whitewashing that you or anyone else can do to that organization that will cause it to be considered as respectable as the Rotary Club.

As for there being no way these men can fight the powers that be, there is something called "the political process" which is no secret, which only someone with strong delusions -- such as a paranoid, racist, KKK member -- can believe that they are actively prevented from participating in in this country. I didn't bother to name any other groups because a) I didn't feel like doing your homework for you -- you are the one who is so worried about these poor, disenfranchised men; and b) I actually thought that you could bring to mind a few yourself -- the Republican Party and the various Baptist churches come to mind as options that a disenfranchised Southerner might find attractive. That is, if he didn't mind giving up the added perks of getting to parade around in sheets and pointy-hooded masks, burning crosses on lawns, and other atavistic acts of social defiance.

As for the repeated claims of these people that they don't "hate blacks" being held up by you as proof that they aren't racist -- that has been the line of segregationists and other racists since day one. They don't "hate" the Negros -- they just think they ought to be kept separate from whites, Among Their Own Kind. It's not "hate" to want to raise up the white man to his lawful place at the top of the human food chain -- it's just God's law that the black man was to be subordinate to the white man. And they'll bring up the Bible, where it says that God gave certain privileges to the Children of Ham and Sem and that other guy I always forget. (Moe? Larry?) Of course they'll tell you they don't hate black people: that's what they tell themselves! Like I said, I grew up here, I know the milieu. Please don't play the "we don't really know anything" game. You may be ignorant, but I'm not. I have had to hear things like my own great-aunt expressing dismay at the sight of a little white girl and a little black boy holding hands, of hearing my father complain that Bob Seeger -- Bob Seeger -- was "nigger music." My father was an educated man with a degree in Political Science from Georgetown University (I have his degree, printed in Latin), back when a degree from that school meant something. True, before the alcoholism set in he would never have let words like that slip his lips, but as he aged and stopped caring all hell broke loose. In Jack Daniels veritas -- these kinds of things have a way of coming out eventually down here. And currently I live not one half-hour's drive away from Polk County, Florida, which is on the FBI list as one of the top three KKK activity hotspots. Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about.

I am beginning to feel as if I am banging my head on a brick wall. Maybe that explains the headache I had this morning.

Rewriting the movies

Last night I turned on the teevee and caught the tail end of a perplexing remake of Carrie. In this version, the filmmakers forsook the flashy crucifixion-by-kitchen-implements/self-crushing-by-telekinetically-imploded-house ending in favor of a lowkey bathtub-drowning/heart-attack end for Carrie and her mom. They would have done better, as Tim Blair did with some other scripts, to rewrite the film using comments from Free Republic.

Trendspotting

I think I've spotted the newest trend: declaring your cussed independent nature by stating (in the comments to someone's blog*) that you "refuse to get a blog of your own."

*No one has said so on mine so far as I can recall, but I've seen this stated by many a pseudonymous email-addressed commenter in many other blog discussions.

Update: aaa-and... just to stave off the onslaught of pouts I can already see coming, I am not demanding that everyone who does not have a blog or a webpage or whatever go out and put one up. I'm just mentioning that there seems to be a tendency for some people to announce "I neither have nor want a blog" now that blogs are being "noticed" by OtherMedia, and are being talked about, and so on -- it's a way of making oneself stand out from the crowd along with all those other people standing out from a crowd.

Me, I have a blog because -- no, this is not going to develop into a tedious "why I blog" credo with a lot of boring blather about "connections" and "community." I have a blog because it beats talking to the teevee, here alone in my apartment with my cat, and because I like to write and spout my opinions and stuff. I can't keep a conventional "what I did today" diary because I would die of boredom, and I love the way you can manipulate colors and fonts and things on the web without having to go to the art store and buy expensive paints and stuff, and the fact that I can get feedback from other people all over the world without actually having to meet them in person is an added bonus. (Meeting most of my commenters is beyond my budget, needless to say -- and my relationship with humanity is neatly expressed in this famous quote of Jonathan Swift's: "I hate the animal called mankind, but I like the occasional Tom, Dick, and Harry.")

Butterfly Dundee?

I have a friend, a most attractive young woman, who set off for Australia a few years ago in search of a husband. I suspect that her quest was inspired by the film Crocodile Dundee, because she likes her men manly. After about 18 months, however, she gave up in despair and returned to England, still single. She told me that she had picked the worst country in the world in which to go man-hunting: all Australian men, without a single exception, were homosexual.

Though if I were an Australian male confronted by a British female whose criteria for a mate was a propensity to hang out with crocodiles, I'd be tempted to claim the other side of the blanket too.

June 06, 2003

MTV suckssss....

But the movie awards show was funny, in that half-assed, anti-Oscar way it always has. Best moment? Gollum's acceptance speech. There was a sweet Michael Moore take-off that was just priceless...

Oh well, I'm out of here. Nighty nite.

Good morning. Well, afternoon, actually. I just had another thought. I can't be quite sure, but on the MTeeVee Movie Awards show last night there did not seem to be one single reference to Iraq, the War, Evil Bushitler, peace signs (unless Pink's upside-down peace-sign earrings counted), my buddy over in Kuwait, why can't all this war stuff go away?, the Children™, the famous dead people who would be against war, ad nauseum. In fact, there was no reference to the so-called "real world" at all. The show was entirely focussed on the teeny-tiny insignificant world of Hollywood plus the music biz, and that's just as it should be.

June 04, 2003

Now we've got a cantina

Big Bad Media

Jeff Jarvis wrote a big post on media bashing and I wrote a big reply in his comments. To review his post, he complained about media bashing by people unlinked and unnamed except for one Lawrence Lessig who I had never heard of. I have read through his post a few times and I still don't know who he is referring to -- no one I have read has bashed "all big media" as being bad in itself; the claims seem to be a little more specific than that. But I took issue with his slamming of bloggers, in a how-dare-they-presume waggon-circling stance straight out of the big-media-personnel handbook (from the chapter "How to Deal With Criticism from Outsiders.") Here is what he said:

As for the anti-big-media bashing we've seen from webloggers -- inspired lately by the FCC and by the New York Times screwups -- I'll argue that they are essentially jealous. Webloggers are nanomedia moguls with big-media aspirations. Most of them are conservative or libertarian and thus should abhor regulation, even of media. But in this case and this case only, they endorse regulation. Why? Because they hate big media. And they hate big media because it has the resources and the distribution and the audience they don't have. Hell, big media pays; blogging doesn't.

My reaction was, Hurrr? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Jarvis? I will admit most of the regulate-deregulate media argument makes my eyes glaze over. I guess I am in favor of as little regulation as possible -- for one thing, it's easier to manipulate the media behind the scenes if there are regulatory boards that can, how shall we say, be "coaxed" to favor one viewpoint over another. But that rant is for another day when I get interested in the subject, which will probably be never. But who are these bloggers whose dispute with "big media" can be reduced to matters of simple envy? It's not even a question of the pot calling the kettle black, since Jeff Jarvis is not the only professional media person with a blog.

Anyway, here is my rant, posted in his comments, but I wanted to share with you, my readers:

With all due respect, I don't think you can see the forest for the trees here. You've missed the point of most of the "attacks" on big media, at least the ones by webloggers.

I was under the impression that the ire "big media" has been getting from bloggers et al isn't so much about the Evil Conglomerate Communist Leftist Corporate Hegemony whatsit or because they are "jealous" of the pay and prestige professional media people get (excuse me, but what the hell?), so much as they are sick of the way pro-journalists and editors of big-deal publications come off as a bunch of snobs when they find their august attention distracted by those pesky blogger flies and other annoying members of the hoi polloi. Look, I am not a "nanomedia mogul with big-media aspirations." I don't want to go on CNN, I don't give a shit about fame and fortune and getting invited to tony Noo Yawk partays with the big boiz, nor do I care one fig about how many people read my blog; but I do get irritated when I read a column in a major publication that treats blogs as nothing more than the equivalent of a high school girl's unicorn-infested webpage on Geocities.

And it's not just blogs that get the patronizing treatment -- the members of the "fourth estate" have an attitude towards their readers that make a pre-Revolutionary French seigneur's treatment of peasants on his lands positively egalitarian by comparison. Just take a gander at this quote from Dana Milbank on the subject of White House chatrooms (quote lifted from the Blogger Formerly Known As Juan Gato): "The White House began the online discussions as a way for administration officials to communicate directly with the public -- cutting out those pesky journalists who act as filters. The resulting exchanges are a blend of the frivolous, the revelatory and, often, the saccharine." Filters. Leaving the relative merits of chatrooms aside, thanks but no thanks, Mr. Journalist Man; I don't need things to be "filtered" for me.

I know that you are a member of "big media" -- but so are a lot of other bloggers who complain about big media (cough Ken Layne Matt Welch Tim Blair cough). Are they just "jealous" too? For the record, I also don't care if all the newspapers and teevee stations in the country get bought by one giant borg of a company. I am not going to sue Clear Channel because their rock stations play nothing but Staind and Nickleback all day instead of my record collection. I don't think media should be "regulated" -- it's already regulated up the yin-yang. I don't care if big media isn't "fair" to all viewpoints. (I am beginning to hate the very concept of fairness. But that is another diatribe.)

And no one is disputing (well, no one except Indymedia freaks who think that the CIA has implanted listening devices in their bongs) the fact that the media in the US is the freest in the world. Maybe I haven't read the same things you have read -- but it seems to me that the threat to media freedom isn't coming from cranky webloggers and other critics, but from members of that same media -- say, like editors at the poor, beleaguered NYT who allow persons like Jayson Blair to write a bunch of lies and call it a "true story."

And then later I happened upon Lawrence Lessig's website, so now I know who he is. I don't know if he is a snob or a bigot where big media is concerned, because I am not interested in reading his whole blog. He does seem preoccupied with the subject. And that petition of his is wack, though I can't quite put my finger on why. Pay a dollar to extend copyright? Um, okay. Whatever... I didn't realize this was such a problem. Of course, doesn't that mean Disney will have no problem extending copyright over their product for eternity, or until civilization crumbles ("whatever duration Congress sets," hah hah!) -- but I guess that's okay? (Because if you think Disney's going to ever make it possible for my friend to publish his cartoon of Mickey fucking an orange you don't know Disney.) So he's not a big media hater after all? I'm so confused.

Why I will not be renting out Jerry Maguire

Besides the fact that I don't care about either Tom Cruise or sports-themed movies, it looks as if this film is yet another attempt to promote emotional diarrhea in society. I agree 100% with this:

I also believe that the good god of evolutionary biology gave us brains to judge, repress, distance ourselves and generally keep control over our emotions. This is because our emotions conflict with each other. Indulged in without thought or judgement, they lead us to catastrophe. If they control us, instead of us controlling them, situations that would merely be situations become instead emotional battlefields, and can do incalculable damage and cause incalculable pain. I associate emotional incontinence with poor, unhappy people, and I believe that their emotional incontinence is, above all else, what makes them poor and unhappy. They don't live their lives. Their lives live them.

Mr. Micklethwaite lives in Britain, where what he calls the "Princess Diana industry" has been making inroads against the famous British stiff upper lip. Or as he puts it: "Old fashioned (stuck up) stoicism is out. Emotional display is in. Self control is out." Sadly, from what I have seen and heard from my perch across the pond, they have been largely successful. I still remember the awful sight of booing, sobbing Princess Di fans descending upon Buckingham Palace with their teddy bears and flowers and candles and their demands that the Queen stand in front of them and shed real tears or they wouldn't like her anymore. One British writer (I think it was one of the Hitchens, though I can't remember which one) contrasted this hysteria with the solemn and dignified procession before Churchill's casket.

Here in the States, of course, keeping your emotions under control has always been optional, and most people don't seem interested in exercising that option. The advantages of doing so are slim: you just have to not mind your dignity and self-control earning you the label of "she's cold and unfeeling," and being accused of lacking enthusiasm (and therefore spoiling everyone's fun, because emotion junkies can't stand what they see as an unappreciative audience), told you should see a doctor about your "depression," and so on.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. My least favorite parts of old Star Trek episodes were ones where Spock was coaxed, tricked, or browbeaten into losing his wonderful cool and displaying a "warm human emotion."

June 03, 2003

To run away from you, is all that I can do

It's a regular 80's fest on Vh-1 Classics. I mean good stuff -- old XTC videos, Big Country (I was much more upset at Stuart Adamson's suicide than that of Michael Hutchence's -- see, I never got to see Big Country in concert, and now I never will.) Earlier today they played some good nineties stuff too -- though this might actually have been on MTV instead. (I get all the video channels mixed up.) They played My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow," and then "Fight the Power," by... heck, I forget the name of that rap band. The one with the guy wearing the giant plastic clock. I had a thought, watching it: how tastefully and almost conservatively everyone in the video was dressed.* Sure, they seemed to have filmed it in Harlem in November, so of course everyone was wearing big winter coats, but am I the only person who remembers that brief span of years in the previous decade when the 80s had calmed down yet fashion still had a little of that "I love a man in a uniform" look? Now all the people in videos look like they were either attacked by a crowd of mad tattooists or were caught in a multicolored spandex tornado.

*Yes, even clock-wearing guy seemed toned-down compared to some of the out-there freaks on music videos today. I can't remember his name either.

Blogger identity theft

Someone trying to pass himself off as Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan had put up a blog on blogspot, written in Farsi.* It seems to have been another Iranian living in the Toronto area. I wonder what motive someone would have to do such a thing; it seems that the imposter was using his site to say all sorts of nasty things. Could this be an attempt to discredit expatriate Iranian bloggers in the eyes of their own people, especially back home in Iran?

*Or Arabic. I read somewhere that both languages are used by Iranian bloggers, but since I read neither, I'll just say it's written in that pretty alphabet that looks like clouds and tree branches.

June 02, 2003

I see it's asshat week again

The list of things I refuse to tolerate on my blog is always growing. Here are a couple more things that you had better not post in my comments unless you want to get banned:

1. Literary criticism used to discredit something I wrote. All it does is make you look like a nasty little shit who couldn't think of a comeback. Though if that is what you, Jon Darby, were going for here, then you used the right technique. Too bad, though -- you've been banned.

2. I am sick of the all the "Florida is full of dummies" crapola. If you live in a state where everyone is an Einstein, what are you doing wasting your time reading blogs? Shouldn't you be researching FTL theory or trying to find the cure for cancer? And I am also banning anyone who engages in South-bashing. While I have lived in Florida all my life, and my family is principally from the South, I have never been a gung-ho Florida-flag-waver nor have I had the slightest interest in various causes Southern, on the other hand I am growing sick of the "Hyuck, hyuck, those Southern yokels are such rubes!" jokes and remarks. It's bigotry, pure and simple, and I refuse to allow it on my blog. That is why Dark Avenger has been judged to have crossed the line here, and his IP has been banned.

And if either of you are spoofing IPs or use some other IP-changing technique to enable yourselves to make more comments, I will ban those IPs too. I'll be here all night, folks, I have plenty of time.

(And if you are intending to leave a comment along the lines of "I don't see what was so bad about what they said" -- don't bother. Read the New FAQ instead.)

Update: "Don't make bitchy comments about people who use linguistic acid better than you do, dear." Try again, Princess.

By the way, I'm not in the martyr-enabling business. Mr. Darby has been unbanned, because he was getting too much of a jones out of it.

Updates to the site

Out of the Closet and Back in the Closet

So Richard Chamberlain's is gay. That's got to be the least shocking news since... I don't know when. Let me just say I figured that out years ago -- for one thing, there was no, I mean no major gossip involving him with some other woman, ever. (Yes, I have been following his career on and off -- he's been one of my favorite actors since I can't remember when.) Anyway, that's always a big Hello Obviousman Here! moment when it comes to Hollywood people. And at least he didn't go out and get himself a beard like some other actors who shall not be named. (cough Tom Cruise cough.)

Another thing that doesn't surprise me is the revelation he gives about Hollywood's real attitude towards gay people. I can read between the lines: in liberal, caring Hollywood, it's not so much that they give a shit about who you shtup, it's whether or not money can be made off your psychosexual crisis. Sure he's got a book coming out (no pun intended) but he's no Ellen Degeneres. He's old, he's not even an exotic (and a scary Shakespearean vet) like Ian McKellan. His career is over, no one's going to pick him to star in The Thorn Birds 2, the Resurrection.

Politicians are like car salesmen

I was going to type a long thing but I got bored. Here is the short version, using the last two presidents as examples:

George W. Bush would sell you a late model, bland-yet-reliable, American (or ally)-made sedan. It wouldn't be flashy, but it would get you from point a to point b, which is the car's main job. You'll drive away feeling vaguely taken in, as all car buyers do, but a year later you'll compare your repair bill with that of your Volvo-owning neighbor and decide that you came out ahead.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, would sell you one of those fragile yet intriguingly-designed foreign roadsters. There would be no passenger seating, and the glove compartment would be bigger than the trunk. Sure, you were a family man, and had come to the dealership fully intending to buy the sturdy yet roomy SUV to serve your wife and children's cargo and ferrying needs. But Billy Jeff is the salesman here, and he feels the pain of the midlife crisis you had no idea you were suffering. And even though the engine in your new status symbol blows up two weeks later, and your wife and children leave you for your profligate ways, and you end up homeless on the street, you'll have that shining moment of utter coolness, when you drove off down Sunset Boulevard with that blond woman who said she was an actress in the passenger seat, to dine out on for the rest of your life. (Which won't be long.)

Oh, okay, here are some more politician-as-car-saleman examples:

That Kerry dude, the one with the helmet hair -- he's the one who keeps trying to get you to buy the car the dealership really wants to dump on someone (usually a repo with a cracked engine block).

John McCain sells big, loud cars and SUVs -- economy rice-burners will get you killed on the road, Mister! Or your daughter! Do you want to see your daughter in her Toyota squished by a semi on the interstate? No! Then why are you even looking at that Corolla? I've got a Ford Expedition over here that could take a hit by a tank!

Albert Gore sells bicycles. Cars are destroying Mother Gaia.

Richard Nixon sells limos in hell. You can't have one, you peon.

Dick Cheney sells ambulances.

George Bush Sr. is partial to Rolls Royces, but he was in a Chevy once. The ride wasn't bad.

Condoleeza Rice will sell you whatever she feels like selling you and by god you will sign that contract and like it. Don't mess with Condi.

Donald Rumsfeld has no time to pussyfoot around with weak-kneed, indecisive car buyers. Do you want to be able to quit riding the bus or not? Here, this car is new, the engine works -- no, I don't know how much mileage it gets! Who the hell cares! Sign the goddamn contract! Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

June 01, 2003

Paging Obviousman

The New York Times is not a national newspaper? Wow -- who knew? Except for everyone not living in the boroughs of the above city, that is. I mean, it's the New York Times, not the "United States Times." Hey, I may be a rube from some uncivilized place called... Folderol? Arborea? Florida! That's it -- but I used to read the NYT to find out what was happening in New York, not Miami. (Via Instapundit.)

Dumb Man Writing

Not satisfied with abasing himself before Saddam Hussein's minions on his "fact-finding" trip to Iraq, Master Thespian Sean Penn has spent about forty large and dumped this full-page ad in the NYT, the purpose of which is to acquaint us all with his freshman-year-level political philosophy and his weighty, junior-high-B-student prose. Lee at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast fisks it but good. Me, I don't have the patience for this anymore. I'll just say that in my opinion it's a real striver.

Here's the massive PDF file from Penn's "under construction" website if you want. And Penn, you suck -- you've got a fucking website, can't you get one of your secretaries to post it in HTML? No one cares what font the NYT used.

How to do stuff

I haven't had much to say recently -- and I've been too busy to say much anyway. But here's a couple of things. Seems a lot of people aren't as willing to go through the trouble and do a lot of cursing and screaming and sweating smart as I am, and need a little help doing some things that are -- tcha! -- so easy! So here is a guide to blogging with Movable Type for those like all normal people to whom the MT documentation is too abstruse. (Hey, I could have called it "MT Blogging for Dummies" like some other people have.)

Speaking of stuff for dummies, someone has uttered aloud the wish for a "Democracy for Dummies." Well, here's a plan that has worked, more or less efficiently, for a couple hundred years or so.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by Spleenville, where you will always find plenty of ego to go around.